Education for some or education for all?: Confronting a persistent injustice in the modern world

Worldwide, several major challenges are currently being faced which threaten achieving sustainable development, peace building and poverty reduction. These include turmoil in the global financial markets and an uncertain outlook for the world economy; worldwide, a rapid rise in food prices by an average of more than 40 % per year over the past 4 years, with the greatest rises being in developing countries; the trend of rising oil prices and a dependence on petroleum for producing consumer goods, food and transport, which increases pressure on the need to develop and utilize renewable forms of energy; various forms of national, regional and global terrorism and other forms of armed conflict; and climate-related problems such as global warming and desertification. Copyright © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.